No one's POV

Currently, Zora and Eugeo were facing an Integrity Knight that pronounced himself Eldrie Synthesis Thirty One. Zora narrow his eyes when he heard the name. Because there had been several crucial bits of information contained in that annoyingly smooth introduction.

First of all, this established a clear rule to the naming of the Integrity Knights. Alice's full name was Alice Synthesis Thirty, so it was clear that Alice and Eldrie were their personal names. The Synthesis in the middle was commonly shared. And the last name was just a number. Eugeo wouldn't have understood, because they were English numbers, but it would suggest that Alice was the thirtieth of the knights, while Eldrie was the thirty-first.

He also said that he was "summoned just a month ago." Zora wasn't sure what Eldrie meant by summoned, exactly, but if he was indeed the newest of the knights, that meant there were only thirty-one of them in total. And given that many of them had to leave Central Cathedral to protect the various regions of the human empire, that meant there couldn't be more than twenty in the tower itself.

But all that calculation was putting the cart before the horse if Zora and Eugeo couldn't defeat the newest and greenest of the knights.

Eugeo: Eldrie? I've heard that name...

Zora: Eugeo. We're going to fight. I'll go first. You wait for my signal.

Eugeo: O-okay. But...Zora, I...

Zora: I told you, there's no time to hesitate anymore. If we can't beat him, there's no way we'll get up to the cathedral.

Eugeo: Um, I'm not hesitating, I'm saying that his name is— Oh, never mind. It can wait. But don't be too reckless, Zora.

Based on his reaction, Zora wasn't sure if Eugeo had understood the full plan, but neither of them didn't have time to hold a strategy meeting. Zora got the feeling that his invisible guardian spirit above his head sighed, but they could still flee for safety after ascertaining the enemy's strength.

Zora took two steps forward through the gate, then unraveled the chain and held it in his fingers. The knight noticed this and raised his eyebrow in curiosity.

Eldrie: You're going to use those chains as your weapons? I suppose it might end up being a proper battle after all.

Eldrie's voice and expression were still overflowing with confidence. Zora inched closer, swearing under his breath that he'd wipe the smugness off Eldrie's features soon enough. The chain had a handicap: Zora couldn't use his Aincrad sword skills with it. But it had much longer reach than a sword. If Zora kept moving, striking and disengaging, it should eventually build up enough damage to give both of them a chance.

It took one moment for that ray of hope to be smashed to pieces. Eldrie reached not for his sword but behind his back.

Eldrie: Then let me not fight with a sword, but instead with this.

When Eldrie's right hand emerged, it held a second weapon he had concealed under his cape—a thin whip that shone silver. As Zora watched in disbelief, Eldrie let the whip hang so that it coiled on the stones like a snake. Unlike Zora's crude chain, the weapon was of finely woven silver cords. And upon closer look, there were fine spiraling spikes running down its length like rose thorns, glinting wickedly in the starlight. It would do more than tear the skin if it hit him.

On top of that, it was at least a dozen feet long, at least three times the length of Zora's chain. His plan to strike and keep his distance was ruined. Zora froze, feeling a cold sweat break out. Eldrie noted the change and snapped his hand. The whip leaped like a living thing, cracking on the stone ground.

Eldrie: And now...in recognition and admiration of your rebellion against the Axiom Church's Taboo Index and your escape from imprisonment, I will do you the honor of fighting my hardest from the word go.

Before Zora could react, Eldrie switched the whip from right hand to left and shouted.

Eldrie: System Call! Enhance Armament!

Zora(mind): Enhance Armament?

Zora understood the English word 'enhance', fortunately. But he didn't understood the word armament. Eldrie didn't give Zora time to consult his mental dictionary. Eldrie lazily raised his arm, pointed it at Zora, then swung.

Zora: Don't worry. If it's a whip, as long as we keep an eye on the distance... it can't possib—

The distance between Zora and Eldrie was a good fifty feet. No matter how long his whip was, it couldn't reach. And yet. Eldrie's whip left a silver trail in the air as it stretched several times its actual length, as though made of some elastic material.

Zora(mind): It extended?

Even in Zora's shock, he lifted his chain with both hands overhead on instinct. There was a tremendous blast, and pale-white sparks showered down around him.

Zora: Urgh...!

Zora instincts told him that if he took the blow standing still, it would sever his chain. Zora bent his knees and twisted to the right to deflect the whip to the side. It scraped nastily along the metal and flew past to strike the stone ground, where it left a deep groove before returning to the knight's hand. Another wave of cold sweat rushed from Zora's pores as he looked at my chain and groaned. The blow had gouged the class-38 object made of "spiristeel,", to the point that one of the rings was nearly ready to split apart.

Eldrie: Ah, so you managed to withstand a blow from my Divine Object, the Frostscale Whip at first sight? I suppose I should apologize for assuming you were a mere student.

Eugeo: Zora! These class-38 chains...

Zora:...

Eldrie was powerful. He was deadly. If anyone was unconsciously underestimating the other, it was Zora. Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-One was a type of foe he'd never faced before, Zora belatedly realized.

The Underworld was Rath's virtual-reality experiment, so in a strict sense, there was no mortal danger to him, Sora Kirigaya. If Eldrie's whip knocked his head off and reduced his life to zero, it wouldn't harm his actual flesh in the least.

So in a certain sense, the fear involved in battle wasn't the same as in SAO, the game of death. Facing enormous floor bosses or psychotic red players in Aincrad, having that tightrope sense of the yawning abyss just beneath your feet—that was a sensation he'd never feel again, and he was glad for it.

Yet that game of death was populated with online gamers like him, who had no real knowledge of swordfighting. They were risking their lives based on stats and numbers, physical motion assistance systems, and reaction speeds honed over a year or two of practice at best.

But Eldrie was different. He'd spent more than a decade of his life in this world training and disciplining his skills, perfecting his craft to its limit. He was a true warrior, physically and mentally. He wasn't an SAO player or a monster under the server's control. He was a rune knight from a fantasy novel come to life.

Eldrie had sharper skills and sacred arts than the goblins Zora and Eugeo fought in the cave under the End Mountains. His willpower was stronger than even the first-seat elite disciples Raios Antinous and Volo Levantein. He likely had the advantage over Zora in every possible way. If Zora fought Eldrie with nothing more than a single metal chain, he was 100 percent going to lose.

Zora(mind): If there was anything I could use to get out of this situation, it was...

???: You are not alone.

For a second, it felt like someone had spoken his own thought aloud. Following that instinct, Zora whispered to his partner.

Zora: Eugeo, the only way we can win is because there's two of us. I'll try to stop his whip. Then you hit him.

Zora didn't hear a response. When he quickly snuck a look over his shoulder, Zora saw that it wasn't fear on Eugeo's face but admiration. When he did eventually speak, Zora's suspicions were confirmed.

Eugeo: Did you see that sacred art, Zora? That was incredible...I've only read about it in an old book at the library, but I recognize it. That was Perfect Weapon Control... an ultrahigh-level art that works on the very matter of your weapon and uses a divine miracle to increase the weapon's strength. No wonder he's an Integrity Knight!

Zora: This isn't the time for gushing, man! Anyway, if that helps increase the attack span, do you think that Perfect Control would work on our chains, too?

Eugeo: No way! That's a top-level secret art, according to the Church. And it only works on divine-level weapons.

Zora: Then we'll have to forget about that one and make do with what we've got on hand. Anyway, I'll find a way to stop his whip, and you finish him off. I know you're not used to whips, but you can at least swing it downward, right?

Eugeo finally got his face under control again, and Zora warned him.

Zora: You've gotta be ready, remember? He's an Integrity Knight, the highest force of the Axiom Church—and we've got to beat him.

Eugeo: I know. I told you, I won't lose sight of the goal!

Eugeo answered, and used his free hand to loosen the chain wrapped around his arm, too. They looked forward again, where the knight smiled his cool smile and snapped his silver whip.

Eldrie: Are you done discussing, prisoners? Now then...try to keep me at least somewhat entertained!

Zora: Should an Integrity Knight really be playing with fire like that?

Eldrie: It's correct that we must mete out divine justice on those who rebel against the Church. That is the will of our exalted pontifex. But as a proud knight, it pains me to lash the weak and helpless with my whip. So I am holding out hope that you are at least strong enough to put a scratch on my armor and prove your worth as foes.

Zora: Scratch your armor? We'll knock off half your life, and your cocky smile with it.

Zora snarled to hide the rising panic inside him. The "pontifex" Eldrie mentioned was an interesting title, but Zora didn't have time to contemplate the implications. Zora gave his chain a wave, then thrust out his left hand at Eldrie.

Zora: System Call! Generate Thermal Element!

Zora commanded, imagining a crimson ruby. Glowing red orbs grew at the end of my thumb, index, and middle fingers. They were flame elements, the basis for fire-based attack spells. Zora was going to continue, but Eldrie calmly held up his hand in response.

Eldrie: System Call. Generate Cryogenic Element.

Those were blue ice elements to counteract Zora's fire, and there were five, one for each finger. He already had the advantage of numbers, but Zora ignored that and continued.

Zora: Flame Element, Arrow Shape!

Zora opened his left hand, stretching out the lights so that they turned into three flaming arrows. They were designed for maximum speed and puncturing power. Up ahead, Eldrie chanted a counteracting art in one breath.

Eldire: Form Element, Bird Shape. Counter Thermal Object.

As quickly as Zora could, so as not to give the enemy time to react, he chanted.

Zora: Fly Straight! Discharge!

A vortex of flame erupted, and the trio of arrows shot toward Eldrie. In a world where sword battle was the orthodox method of combat, attack- type sacred arts existed only to battle the forces of darkness—or so the old lecturer at the academy said. He'd probably have a stroke if he knew Zora was using his lessons to attack an Integrity Knight.

Eldrie: Discharge!

The five blue dots turned into little birds—ideal for homing—that took flight at once. Zora's arrows were faster, but there were more of the little ice birds. The fiery shafts slipped past two of them, but the other three pounced on the arrows, causing the flames and ice crystals to shatter and cancel each other out. The force of the collisions knocked the wineglass off the bench, and it shattered on the stones. Zora leaped forward after the arrows. He bore down on Eldrie, using the flashy explosion as cover. He was only a few steps away from the knight.

The knight's right hand snapped, and the silver whip leaped off the ground like a snake. At this range, his Perfect Weapon Control range boost was meaningless. Zora watched it curve in from the right and tried to read its path, tilting his body to avoid it so he could cross that last step. But—

Zora: ?!

Zora's breath caught in his throat. Eldrie's whip split into two in midair, the new silver snake cutting a sharper angle to bear down on him directly. Zora was already trying to avoid the original blow by inches, and he had no way to dodge this one. The whip struck him right in the chest and slammed him down onto the cobblestones.

Zora: Gaahhh!!

Zora had been expecting it, but even then, the pain of those countless metal thorns on the whip made his vision briefly go dark. Zora clenched his teeth and looked down to see that the chest part of his dark blue uniform had torn through both layers, with a vivid red line running across the exposed skin beneath it.

Little drops of blood began to form along its length and trickle downward in parallel lines as they oozed forth. Eldrie looked at Zora, splayed out on the stones, and laughed heartily.

Eldrie: Ha-ha-ha! Those tricks won't work on the Frostscale Whip. When under Perfect Control, not only can it cover up to fifty mels, it can also split into up to seven parts. If there were eight of you, then you might stand a chance attacking me all at once.

Zora didn't have the mind to get angry this time. Zora hadn't experienced such searing pain since the goblin captain hit his shoulder two years ago. He always tried to remember that his lack of resistance to pain was one of his greatest weaknesses here, but given that the stop-short rule was practiced in almost all cases at the academy, Zora just hadn't had the chance to build up his hardiness.

Eldrie: Did I overestimate you after all? Allow me to show you mercy. I'll knock you unconscious quickly.

Just then, Eugeo leaped out from behind the fountain, sheer desperation on his features.

Eugeo: Uraaah!

With a rare bellow, he swung down his chain. It was a tremendous swing for someone with no experience using one, and it came with perfect timing— but it still wasn't enough to break the knight's defenses. Eldrie's right hand moved at blurring speed, the silver whip splitting once again. One of the tendrils deflected the chain, and the other hit Eugeo. Like Zora, it hit Euge0 on the chest, and he was thrown into the fountain with a huge splash before he could even react.

The shocking pain of Zora's wound was still vivid, but he couldn't waste the opportunity that Eugeo's suicide attack had created. Sensing that Eldrie's attention was mostly focused away from him, Zora sat up and hurled what he'd had clenched in his right hand at the knight's face.

It didn't take a tenth of a second from the moment it entered his view until it struck. But even then, the knight had the reaction speed to turn his face to the right and avoid a direct hit on his eye. The piece of glass scratched his left cheekbone and disappeared into the darkness, leaving only a shallow cut.

Zora: Whoa!!

Zora was in a squat before Eldrie could turn back to face him, and Zora raced forward. Two steps later, he was in chain range. Zora pulled it back over his left shoulder in preparation to strike. Momentarily startled, Eldrie recovered and brought his right hand back, returning the whip from its attack on Eugeo to use it against Zora.

If Zora just crudely swung the chain forward, the weapons would clash at best, or the whip would split and hit just Zora again at worst. But Zora banished his fear and focused hard on the gleaming end of the whip—then on the spot behind Eldrie, where Eugeo had fallen into the fountain. In every style of swordfighting Zora and Eugeo learned about at the Swordcraft Academy, it was a tremendous mistake to take your eye off an enemy during an attack. A kind of "taboo," in fact. Swordsmen in this world would never do that. Even Integrity Knights.

Eldrie: Hrng!

And thus Eldrie grunted and, for an instant, turned his focus away from Zora. He sensed that Eugeo was instantly going to rise from the fountain after his fall, striving to attack again. But that was a sensation he received only because Zora shifted his eyes away from him. Eugeo was tough, but not enough to take a hit from a Divine Object and get up the next second.

Mirroring Eldrie's hesitation, his silver whip wavered briefly in midair. It passed Zora's chain, missing by just a hair. Zora had chosen the backhand from the left to make the chain run parallel to the whips and increase the difficulty of deflection—a trick Zora had learned through hard experience with his wooden sword against Liena's whip. But this strategy wouldn't work twice. It was his one, only, final chance.

Zora: Zeyaaaaah!!

Zora screamed with all his soul and swung down the spiristeel chain with all his strength. His aim was at Eldrie's head, the only part of the knight's body not protected by that shining armor. Whether he'd taken his helmet off to drink the wine or had assumed he simply wouldn't need it against mere students, Zora wasn't going to let that chance pass. A good heavy chain smashing an unprotected head should knock out an Integrity Knight.

Zora: !!

But once again, Eldrie displayed an ability Zora never considered. His left hand shot out like lightning and caught the end of the chain—not with the gauntlet armor on the back of his hand but with the thin leather glove of his palm.

If he'd taken it with the back of his hand, the chain would have wrapped around the point like a fulcrum and still hit his head, albeit not as powerfully. In that sense, Eldrie made the right choice—but that thin leather glove wasn't going to absorb a blow from a class-38 chain.

Eldrie: Urgh...!

Eldrie grunted, unable to conceal his pain. Zora clearly heard the sound of multiple bones in Eldrie's left hand breaking all at once. He wouldn't be able to use that hand for a while, and Zora didn't think Eldrie likely to toss aside that Frostscale Whip for a different weapon.

Zora had leap on him and start a hand-to-hand fight. Liena had taught him some of the Serlut style's martial arts, along with his own martial arts he learn on the real world. It was more suited to holds than blows, but against a heavily armored opponent, that was actually a good thing.

Zora: Not done yet!

Zora shouted, and lunged forward, ready to use his left hand to grab Eldrie's injured arm.

Eldrie: I don't think so!

But the thirty-first and newest Integrity Knight once again betrayed Zora's expectations. Eldrie squeezed the chain with his broken hand and pulled. The chain was rooted to the shackle around Zora's right wrist, so it pulled him in the opposite rotation and threw off his balance. Zora desperately tried to hold his ground, but Eldrie bellowed and attempted to swing him away.

Zora: Hrrng!!

If Eldrie succeeded, Zora's be out of his chain's range and back on the wrong end of Eldrie's whip. Eldrie'd ensure Zora didn't get close again. On instinct, Zora adjusted his left hand's target from Eldrie's left arm to the right hand holding his weapon. The Frostscale Whip's many thorns did not reach down to the last four feet or so from its handle. Zora wrapped that part of it around his arm so that it couldn't break free.

Unless Eldrie let go of both his whip and Zora's chain, he couldn't put distance between them. If Eldrie released Zora's chain, Zora could wail on Eldrie all he wanted. Eldrie sensed that, too, so he gripped Zora's weapon even harder in his crushed hand.

This stalemate of steel chain and silver whip kept Zora and Eldrie just over three feet apart. Zora was sure Eldrie's broken hand had to be screaming in pain as it clutched the chain, but the knight showed no signs of it on his face.

Eldrie: Perhaps I should take back what I said about underestimating you? To think you could inflicted such a wound on me!

Zora: Thanks I guess...

Between Eldrie's fractured hand and Zora's chest lacerations, the bleeding whip wound was making Zora's life descend faster. If Eldrie realized this, he could maintain his hold on Zora's chain and wait until Zora started to weaken. But perhaps he already knew. The knight smiled, but if his next statement was meant to buy him more time, it was an odd way of doing it.

Eldrie: Still, that move...that combat style...Strategy enough, it seems familiar to me...

Zora: Oh yeah? It shouldn't be that strange. Maybe you've fought someone else who uses the Serlut style before?

Eldrie: Hah. That's not possible, prisoner. I told you, I was summoned into the human realm as an Integrity Knight only a month ago.

Zora: When you say 'summoned'...

Zora started to ask, but then he heard the sound. Or more accurately, he heard a shift in a sound that was already there. In the middle of the fountain behind Eldrie was the stone statue of Terraria, the deity of earth. The statue held a little jug that was pouring a constant trickle of water into the fountain below—but now the sound was muffled. It was a sign. From Eugeo to him. Eldrie would eventually notice it too. Zora had to keep up the conversation and be ready to move.

Zora: It sound like someone snapped their fingers and called you here.

In order to distract Eldrie, Zora had to do something. But releasing the Frostscale Whip from his arm wasn't an option. That left only one possibility... Zora yanked hard on the chain Eldrie reacted by pulling back to return the position to equilibrium. The metal yanked tight, and almost immediately, the chain snapped down the middle. The piece that had taken the whip blow moments earlier finally gave out.

Eldrie: Wha—!

He gasped and lost his balance. It was then that Eugeo leaped out of the fountain with a huge splash. He'd recovered from the blow to his chest and was waiting beneath the statue's trickle for his chance to attack. The change in sound had come from the flow of water striking his back.

Eugeo: Raaaah!!

Eugeo swung his chain down at Eldrie's defenseless head, spraying water droplets everywhere. But half a second before that, the knight had spoken a brief command.

Eldrie: Release Recollection.

Zora(mind): Release Recollection...?

This phrase, Zora didn't understand at all. But the effect it had, given the brevity of the command itself, was so impossible, it seemed to transcend the category of sacred arts. The silver whip wrapped around Zora's left hand, so tight that Eldrie could neither push nor pull it away, flashed brightly. Then it began thrashing around like a living animal—and extended tremendously fast.

The Frostscale Whip, now a shining snake, soared over our heads and leaped onto the chain in Eugeo's hand. And "snake" wasn't just a bit of poetic license. On the tip of the whip, Zora saw little ruby eyes and bared fangs. The snake bit down on the end of the chain, pulled it and Eugeo up into the air, and slammed it down onto the cobblestones just next to Zora. Eugeo landed on his back and grunted. That added up to more damage for him than Zora so far, but he valiantly attempted to rise again.

But a ferociously sharp tip grazed his wet bangs before he could get up. Eldrie had recovered his balance, tossed aside the broken chain, and pulled his sword free to point it at Eugeo. It was a thin blade, but it shone with the richness of a fine make. The weight of it had to be killing the broken bones of his left hand, but there was only the faintest hint of a furrow between his eyebrows.

The silver snake, had protected its master of its own accord, shriveled up and returned to being a plain old whip again. Whatever that Release Recollection command was, its miracle had a short time limit.

The situation was in a stalemate at last. Zora had Eldrie's whip stuck to his hand. Zora had lost half his chain. Eugeo had a sword to his face, keeping him still. Eldrie seemed to have the advantage, being the one with the sword, but I doubted he could do all that much with it, given the state of his hand. Silence settled upon the little rose garden in the predawn chill. It was Eldrie who spoke first again.

Eldrie: No wonder Lady Alice was cautious of you. That attack has no form or anything, but that's why it exceeded my expectations. To think that you made me use my secret skill, Memory Release!

Zora: Memory Release...?

Then Zora finally understood the meaning of that mysterious command. "Recollection" was a synonym for memory.

Zora(mind): So it was a sacred art that unleashed the memories...of the weapon?

Memories of the weapon. That sounded familiar from the recent past, and Zora was about to consult his own memories when Eugeo gasped with admiration for some reason.

Eugeo: And you...are every bit as great as I imagined, Sir Knight.

Zora: Th-this isn't the moment for compliments! And...what do you mean, 'as you imagined'?

Eugeo made it sound like he'd known this knight before.

Eugeo: I thought the name sounded familiar when he said it. And now I remember. Zora, this man is the Norlangarth Empire's champion swordsman for this year...as well as the winner of the Quad-Empire Unification Tournament—Eldrie Woolsburg!

Zora: Wha...?

Zora stared at the Integrity Knight standing two paces away. The Northern Empire's champion. That meant he won the Imperial Battle Tournament held in late March. He was the representative of the Imperial Knights, the man who defeated Sortiliena in the first round and Volo Levantein in the second. He won the Quad-Empire Unification Tournament in early April with overwhelming skill, making him this year's greatest swordsman in the human empire and earning him an invitation to Central Cathedral.

Zora: You're such an honor student.

But if Eugeo was right, and this Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-One was indeed this year's champion, Eldrie Woolsburg, then something about his actions didn't add up. Eldrie had said that he was summoned to the human realm as an Integrity Knight one month ago. Zora would understand if he were designated an Integrity Knight...but he made it sound like...

Eldrie: What...did you...?

For some reason, Eldrie was pale, his faintly purplish gray eyes wide as if grappling with some monumental shock to the system. His bloodless lips trembled and formed the words.

Eldrie: I was...Northern...Champion...? Eldrie... Woolsburg...?

Eugeo: Th-that's right. It said so in the newspaper last month. A handsome man with purple hair...who won every match by landing a perfectly clean hit with his graceful, flowing style...

Eldrie: What are you talking about? No...I...I'm the Integrity Knight Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-One! I...I've never heard the name Woolsburg!

Zora interjected, briefly forgetting that they were in the middle of a fight.

Zora: B- but you weren't born an Integrity Knight. Wasn't that just your name before you were designated a knight...?

Eldrie: I don't know! I...I've never heard it!!

His face was white as a ghost now, eyes rolling and twitching.

Eldrie: I... I was invited by the pontifex, Administrator...to descend upon this land from the heavens as an Integrity Knight!

He stopped abruptly. And then something even more shocking happened. A purple line of light appeared right in the center of Eldrie's smooth forehead.

Eldrie: Grgh...uhhh...

All the strength went out of his hand, but Zora was too busy staring at Eldrie's head to think of wresting the whip away from him. The glowing line formed a small, inverted triangle. It wasn't just a magical seal, it was floating further and further out of his brow. The clear triangular pillar, like some kind of crystal, jutted out an inch or two from his skin, flashing and shining.

Inside the prism, fine tendrils of light ran freely in every direction. Once it had extended to a few inches, the whip and sword tumbled out of Eldrie's hands.

His eyes were vacant. He stumbled backward a few steps, then fell to his knees like a lifeless puppet. The crystal on his forehead flashed and pulsed, and Zora could hear a strange ringing sound from it.

Eugeo: Wh-What just...

Zora(mind): Did Alice lose her memories and change personalities because of that?

Whatever they were seeing now had something to do with the root of the Integrity Knights and the Axiom Church's secrets. Why had Alice lost her memory and turned into someone else? Why did Eldrie talk about summoning? Perhaps Zora would know the answers if he watched this phenomenon to the end. Zora was inching closer to the kneeling Integrity Knight when the jutting triangular prism blinked, then began to recede back into his head.

Zora: Ugh...

Zora bit his lip. He'd been hoping that the prism would fall out entirely and cause some kind of event.

Zora: Eldrie! Eldrie Woolsburg!

Zora shouted. The crystal paused for an instant, then continued moving again. His old name alone wouldn't be enough to complete whatever this process was. Zora needed a more definitive memory. He turned to Eugeo, who was watching the display in disbelief, and hissed.

Zora: Eugeo, is there anything else you know about Eldrie?! Anything at all—we need to stimulate his memories!

Eugeo then started to tell him different things about his past including his mother and he started to cry and suddenly, an arrow came flying down and hit Zora's foot.

Zora: Gah

Zora cried, unable to hold it in. He grabbed the dark-red arrow, moaning, and pulled it right out. The pain redoubled as he did, but Zora somehow managed to keep himself from fainting.

Eugeo: Zora!

They both look up only to see red Integrity Knight with a bow riding a dragon.

???: You criminals.Step away from Knight Thirty One! You won't be forgiven for the sin of tempting a brilliant Integrity Knight to fall from grace. After piercing all four of your limbs, I shall throw you back into your cell!

Zora: Uh...run!

The Crimson Knight was too close now for Zora and Eugeo to evade after he loosed the arrows. Zora started sprinting. His chest and right foot throbbed powerfully with each step, but he couldn't stop now. Eugeo kept up behind him, breathing wildly. Zora considered running back down to the cells, but that would only shelter them from the arrows, not solve their problem. They rushed through the southern gate of the clearing, realizing that a single dead end would be it for them.

Zora: Dammit!

Zora and Eugeo continue to run, they were coming across a fork in the road.

Zora(mind): A fork in the road!

Suddenly, Zora then heard a voice.

???: Go right!

A voice came out of nowhere, momentarily stopping Zora's brain in its tracks. Thisaway was rather folksy, old-fashioned terminology, but the voice was that of a young girl.

Zora: Eugeo, go right!

Eugeo: Zora! Up ahead! It's a dead end!

???: Hey! This way!

Zora slowed down, looking around, and noticed that just ahead and to the right was a small door he hadn't seen before. Peering out and beckoning them over was a girl, who was indeed maybe ten years old, wearing a black hat. The round glasses on her nose flashed, and she disappeared through the door. For a moment, Zora wondered if it was a trap. Then his bangs tugged him onward harder than ever before. It was as if they were saying...

???: What are you doing? Get in there!

Eugeo and Zora raced toward the darkness within that door.

Zora: Where are we?

???: We've been detected. Can't use this back door anymore.

The mysterious person muttered, and waved Zora off. Zora had to give up on his questions and descend the stairs.

There were no lights in the hallway, nothing but the faint illumination seeping through from the far end of the hall, so Zora could make out only a silhouette. She had on a large, bulky hat and a robe like the sort a magician would wear draped around her small body. The keys were in her right hand and a staff taller than she in the left. That magic staff swung forward, pushing them onward. Whoever she was, she'd saved them from the Integrity Knight's attack, so Zora bowed his head to her.

Zora: Um...thank you for rescuing us.

???: Don't know if it was worth the trouble yet.

Eugeo: Um...it's nice to meet you. I'm Eugeo, and this is Zora. Thank you so much for saving us. Um, do you...live here?

He was clearly disoriented as well. The girl looked annoyed and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

???: Of course I don't live here...Come with me.

She cracked the staff against the stone, then started walking toward the large door on the far wall. Zora and Eugeo hurried after her, watched as she waved the staff to remotely open the door—and received yet another shock. When they passed through the door after her and found themselves in another mysterious new space, all they could do was stare. It was a stunning sight. The only way to describe it in one phrase was "a gigantic library."

A world of infinite shelves and books. It was circular as a whole but with numerous staircases and walkways along the walls, which were lined on one or both sides with massive bookshelves. The span from the floor to the ceiling over the maze of shelves was tall enough to fit a ten-story building inside. Zora couldn't even imagine the total number of books contained in all these shelves.

There was no way a structure large enough to house this library could be in the rose garden. Zora gazed up at the gloomy ceiling far above.

Zora: Is...is this inside the Central Cathedral?

???: You could say that. And you could say it's not. Because I removed its original door, this great library exists within the cathedral, but none can enter— without my invitation.

Eugeo: Great...library...?

Eugeo mumbled, looking around in disbelief.

???: Aye. This library contains all historical records dating back to the creation of this world, the formulas that govern its every working function, and all the system commands that you call sacred arts.

Zora(mind):...System commands?!

Zora couldn't believe the words he was hearing at first. Zora stared at the girl, and through half-open lips.

Zora: Wh-who...are...you?

She looked at Zora, clearly understanding the shock he had received and the reason for it, and introduced herself.

???: My name is Cardinal. I was once the regulator is the world, now I am the sole librarian of this great library.

Zora(mind): Cardinal?!

To Zora, that word held three meanings.
• First was the senior rank in the Catholic Church of the real world.
• Second was the name of a bird, so named because its plumage was the same vivid red as the robes worn by the aforementioned priests.
• And third was from "Cardinal System," the highly advanced autonomous program that Akihiko Kayaba developed to run his VRMMO game. The original version was utilized in SAO, where it held the players in the palm of its hand, fine-tuning the economy, items, and monster generation to exacting effect.

After Zora beat SAO, Kayaba fried his brain by scanning it with a prototype STL, but before doing so, he created a bite-size version of the Cardinal System and included it in a suite of VRMMO development tools called The Seed.

The thought-simulation program Kayaba left behind in cyberspace helped The Seed spread throughout the Net, where it controlled many other games such as Gun Gale Online. Zora had a part in The Seed's free distribution, and for a long time, he'd wondered what his Uncle Kayaba's true goals were, but Zora had never come to a satisfying answer.

Zora(mind): Knowing him, there was no way he'd release his dev kit for free just to absolve his sins in creating the SAO Incident... That all aside, could this girl here be a personification of that very same Cardinal System?

It was possible, of course, that within the Axiom Church there was a senior rank that they named after the real-life cardinal. But she mentioned that she was once the "coordinator" of the world. Not the leader, not the ruler: Cardinal the Coordinator.

Zora(mind): But why would the Cardinal System be here? Was the Underworld built using The Seed? And if that were the case, why would the coordination system, the "invisible hand of God," take human form? Unlike with Rio and Yui, the counseling program, the Cardinal System wasn't supposed to be able to talk with players.

Zora was totally paralyzed with questions, and Eugeo seemed fairly stunned himself. He managed to mumble.

Eugeo: All...of history...? You mean an entire chronology from the founding of the four empires to now? Here...?

Cardinal: And not only that. There's even a record of the Creation, when Stacia and Vecta split the world between the human empire and the Dark Territory.

He swayed back and forth, looking ready to pass out—Eugeo was a history buff. The mysterious girl named Cardinal pushed her glasses up again and grinned mischievously.

Cardinal: What do you say? My stories can run a lil' long, so why don't you have a meal and a rest first? If you want to read, all the books are open to you. However many you want, for as long as you want.

She swung her staff with another "Hoy!" and a small, round table simply pushed its way up out of the floor next to her. It was piled high with steaming food—sandwiches, meat buns, sausages, fried pastries.

The sight prompted immediate pangs in Zora's stomach after a night of sipping water and nibbling on hard bread, but Eugeo seemed to feel guilty about chowing down and reading books while we were on their mission to rescue Alice. He looked to Zora with misgivings plain on his face, so Zora had to shrug and explain.

Zora: We had enough trouble against Eldrie, and there's no way we can push through against an archer knight on his dragon. Let's rest, recuperate, and work on a new plan. It seems safe here, and we've lost a lot of life already.

Cardinal: Indeed. I've placed a charm so that if you eat, your wounds will heal. But first, hold out your right hands.

Zora and Eugeo did as she said, holding out the arms that still bore the shackles. With two waves of her staff, the heavy rings split apart and fell to the floor. They rubbed their bare wrists, freed for the first time in two days. Eugeo still looked conflicted, but then he scrunched up his face and sneezed. He'd fallen headfirst into the fountain during the fight with Eldrie and was still soaking wet. If they didn't get that addressed, he'd wind up with a "Head Cold" negative status effect.

Cardinal: You seem like you could use a good warm-up before you eat. At the end of that hall there, you'll find a small bath. You can eat and read after that.

Zora didn't think they were going to end up sleeping here, but Eugeo did at least seem to accept her offer.

Eugeo: Thank you. I'll do that, C-Cardinal. Um, and...where would that record of the Creation be?

Cardinal lifted her staff and pointed toward a particularly large cluster of shelves situated quite high up in the library.

Cardinal: From that staircase upward is the history wing.

Eugeo: Thank you! Well...I'll be off now.

He bowed again, sneezed again, then disappeared down the narrow path between the bookcases. Cardinal watched him go.

Cardinal: Although the records here were, unfortunately, fabricated by the pontifex of the Axiom Church.

Zora: So...are the gods of this world a fiction? No Stacia, no Solus, no Terraria, no Lunaria, no Izanami...no Vecta?

Cardinal: None. The myths that the Underworld people believe in are merely the propaganda spun by the church to cement its rule. Although the names of the Gods have been registered as Super accounts for emergencies, no human from the outside world has logged in through that.

That answer cleared up a portion of Zora's questions, at least. He then stared into those burnt-brown eyes.

Zora: You're not an Underworldian, though. You're more like an outsider...like the system admins.

Cardinal: Indeed. And you're the same as well, right? Unregistered resident Zora.

Zora: Yeah, that's right.

At long last, after two years and two months, Zora had unshakable certainty that this was not some alternate dimension but a virtual world created by human beings in base reality. Zora felt a powerful sensation rising, taking him by surprise. He sucked in a deep breath and exhaled. There were so many things to ask that he didn't know where to start. But there was one thing he had to confirm.

Zora: The name of the ones who created the Underworld is Rath, R-A-T-H. Correct?

Cardinal: Indeed.

Zora: And you are the Cardinal System, the autonomous program that operates and manages the virtual world.

As soon as Zora said this, the girl's eyes widened.

Cardinal: Oh? So you know about that? Have you contact my counterparts on the other side?

Zora: Well, yeah.

Interaction didn't cover the half of it. Zora spent two years in Aincrad fighting for his life, and the greatest enemy of all, in a way, was the Cardinal System. Zora didn't think that would make much sense to her, though.

Zora: But...as far as I knew, the Cardinal System never had a personified interface like you. So...what does that make you? What do you do here?

Cardinal smiled faintly at the succession of questions. She pushed a curly lock of hair from her forehead back under her cap and, in that strange voice that was both young and old.

Cardinal: It will be...a very, very long story. Why did I isolate myself in this library...? Why did I wait to make contact with you...? It is a very long story indeed...

She paused, appearing to lose herself in reminiscence, then looked up.

Cardinal: I can sum it up as quickly as I can. But first, eat. Your wounds must be plaguing you.

The succession of wild experiences had pushed the pain to the back of Zora's mind, but as soon as she pointed it out, he felt an instant throb in his chest where Eldrie had whipped him and in his right foot where the knight had shot him. On her instructions, Zora grabbed a piping-hot steamed bun from the table and took a hearty bite. The meat was every bit as delicious as the stuff in the buns Zora slipped out of school to buy from Gottoro's in town. Enraptured, he continued stuffing it into his face. Whatever commands she had put on the food, each bite caused the pain to dim and the wounds to close up and heal.

Zora: Just like a true admin...you can adjust the food settings to anything you want.

Cardinal: Two mistakes. I'm not an administrator. And I can only manipulate objects within this library.

She turned away and started walking down the aisle along the curved wall. Zora picked up all the buns and sandwiches he could carry and cast a glance at the hallway toward the bath. He'd need a good long soak to avoid getting a cold, so Eugeo wouldn't be emerging anytime soon...

Zora: Hmm? Wait...if you can heal wounds with food, shouldn't it protect against sickness, too?

Zora pointed out. Cardinal looked back and grinned. Apparently the bath was just an excuse to get Eugeo away from them.

Cardinal: Have you ever wondered why it is that this peaceful, artificial world contains a feudal system?

Zora: Let me guess. The outside people who created this world merely set down the vessel. The social structure I see here was created entirely by the Underworldians who live here.

Cardinal: You sure know your stuff. I'm impress, Unregistered Zora.

Cardinal smile in awe by Zora's knowledge of the Underworld. It made sense that they were excluding Eugeo from this conversation. At last, Zora recalled one of the first things he wanted to clear up with her. She'd demonstrated familiarity with Rath. So did that mean...?

Zora: H-hang on. Can you make contact with the real world? Is there some method of relaying information?

She looked annoyed.

Cardinal: Idiot! If I could, I wouldn't be confined inside a dusty place like this for centuries. Unfortunately, the only one who has the means to do that is the pontifex.

Zora: I see. Then, can you tell what date it is in the real world...or where my physical body is located, or—

Cardinal: I'm afraid I can't access the system domain now. Even my ability to browse the data register is meager. Compared to the Cardinal you knew on the other side, I am a helpless creation.

She said bashfully, making a disappointed face that suited her apparent age. Zora almost began to feel a bit sorry for her.

Zora: No,it's a huge help that you even know about the real world at all. Sorry to have derailed your explanation...you were talking about feudalism. Does it have something to do with...needing a manager in place to maintain security or distribute goods?

Cradinal: But as you know by now, the people of this world do not disobey the law as a fundamental rule. They do not harm others, steal, or monopolize harvests. But if their diligence and fairness were enforced by nature, you would assume they'd form a more effective social development, like communism. Do you think such people, in a world of barely a hundred thousand, really need six emperors and various ranks of nobles numbering over a thousand?

Zora: A hundred...

Cardinal: Earlier I said that there were no gods in this world. But in the age of Creation—four hundred and fifty years ago—there were those who resembled that title. Six 'gods'...back when Centoria was just a tiny village.

Cardinal then started to explain to Zora the 6 original Gods of the Underworld, which were humans that dived in at the beginning of the world and how one of the six who was unethical and how the children from that person inherited his selfish desires and how they became the ancestors of the nobles and the high ministers of the Axiom Church. And how that planted the seed for the one who is currently in power of the entire Human Empire, The Administrator, Quinella, and how she's the older sister of Cardinal.

Cardinal continued to tell Zora the tale of Quinella rise in power, how she created the Taboo Index to rule the ever growing mass and to ensure that no one with higher authority level will never appear, how she made her own Fluctlight into a non editable behavioral principles and ended up fusing her soul with the Cardinal System. How she coped her own Fluctlight into a child's body to create Cardinal, how she created the Integrity Knights, to fight Cardinal, who rebel against her.

Cardinal: Administrator and I are nearly on equal footing in one on one combat. But with the situation changed, it became clear that I also need a collaborator. I tried to find that collaborator, no matter the risk. Each time, I would open a door as far as possible, I would cast Sensory Sharing and other arts onto nearby birds and insects, and release them all over the world.

Zora: Ha-ha...So those are your eyes and ears, huh? Is that how you were keeping tabs on me...?

Cardinal: Yes!

She said with a smirk, reaching out. Her palm uplifted, she made a beckoning motion with her finger.

Zora: Whoa!

Abruptly, something very small leaped out of Zora's hairline and onto Cardinal's palm. It was a black spider smaller than the tip of Zora's pinkie. It spun around, looked up at Zora with four crimson eyes, and lifted its front right leg in what seemed like a salute.

Cardinal: See? Her name is Charlotte. She's been observing the two of you ever since you left Rulid Village. From time to time, she did more the just watch.

Zora: You mean that tugging sensation wasn't just my instincts talking to me? It was something literally pulling on my hair...? W-wait...When they cut down all my zephilia flowers, was it you trying to cheer me up...? The one who told me to believe in the zephilias' vitality and the other flowers' wishes...

The voice in my memory had been a slightly older woman's. That would suggest that the black spider, as the name Charlotte suggested, had a female personality. Was that even possible? Could an insect have a soul—a fluctlight? Charlotte answered my question with nothing but the gaze of her red eyes at first. Then the spider ran off Cardinal's palm and scurried across the tabletop, jumped to the nearby bookshelf, and disappeared.

Cardinal: Charlotte's the most ancient of the observation units that I enchanted and and released into the world. Her long mission is finally coming to an end now, eh? Since I froze the degradation of her life,I've had her working for me for more then 200 years.

Zora(mind): Thank you.

Zora: So basically...you've been stuck here in the Great Library, using familiars as your eyes and ears, searching for a possible human helper for over two centuries...?

Cardinal: Correct. I cannot view the violation index of individual humans from here. I have to keep an ear open for rumors of strange events, then send observers out to watch the people who were likely to have caused them. It is a very tedious, laborious process. More than once or twice, I have found promising people, only to see them hauled off and made into Integrity Knights. I have no emotions, but I've certainly learned enough about disappointment and patience. In fact...in the last decade, I've even begun understanding the concept of resignation.

She said, her lips turned upward into a grin weighted with two centuries of life.

Cardinal: While I sat back and watched the world, Administrator has been busy creating a proactive system of defense, securing powerful knights to do her bidding. In fact, that is the true purpose of the Four-Empire Unification Tournament that you and Eugeo sought to enter.

Zora: So the warrior who wins that tournament doesn't earn the glory of being promoted to Integrity Knight...

Cardinal: He or she is forced into becoming one. Their prior memories are placed behind a wall, and they become powerful, unthinking puppets for the pontifex's bidding. The families that produce Integrity Knights are given eye- popping payments and elite noble titles, so those lower nobles and merchants are happy to teach their children the sword, even if ultimate success means they will never see those sons or daughters again. The knights themselves are assigned to duties that will ensure they do not make accidental contact with those families. They are cut off from their pasts.

Zora: So that's what you meant when you said they were intentionally isolated...

Cardinal: Yes, I was speaking of this system. Of the thirty-one Integrity Knights, half were brought in for violating a taboo, and the other half were tournament champions. Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-One was the latter.

Zora: I see...So that's how it works...

So it was actually a good thing that neither Sortiliena, the student I served as page, or Eugeo's Golgorosso had been triumphant at this year's tourney. If Sortiliena had beaten Eldrie and gone on to win, then Zora would have encountered her in the rose garden as an Integrity Knight with her memory removed.

And there was more. If the incident with Raios and Humbert had never happened, and Eugeo and Zora had become school champions as they'd planned and then gone through the tournament and won—or if they'd never escaped those cells and had been taken in for questioning—then Eugeo could have ended up as the thirty-second Integrity Knight, even if Zora's natural fluctlight kept him safe. They would have fallen right into a terrible trap.

Cardinal: Over these two centuries, Administrator has steadily shored up her defenses, while I have nearly lost all hope. So yes, I began to wonder why I was even bothering...

Her brown eyes stared up at the distant ceiling of the library. She blinked a few times, as though imagining warm sunlight streaming from the cold rock dome.

Cardinal: The world I saw through my observation units was beautiful and radiant. The children ran happily through the fields, girls blushed with romance, and mothers smiled at the babes in their arms with loving sentiment. If the furniture-maker's daughter whose body I possess had been allowed to grow like normal, she could have had all those things. She would have led a life untroubled by the workings of the world and, after sixty or seventy years, ended her life in bliss and satisfaction, surrounded by her family...

Her voice stopped in a whisper, her eyes downcast. Cardinal's tiny body swayed a little.

Cardinal: I cursed my prime directive, that drive to correct the main process that was etched into my soul. I realized I was an old crone, just before my natural death. All the sparkle of life had faded from me, like a wizened, weak tree, counting down the seconds until my life span was gone. Strangely enough, even my way of speaking began to reflect that view. As I spent my days endlessly listening to the bustle of humanity through my familiars' ears, I pondered why the gods from the outside world would abandon it to its fate under Administrator's heel... Stacia, Solus, Terraria, Lunaria, and Izanami are false gods created to suit the Axiom Church's ends, but within the list of system commands, I spotted on multiple occasions the name of the true god: Rath. I learned that Rath was a collection of gods...and I learned of their soulless approximation of a god, Cardinal—and that its two directives had been burned into Administrator and me. The more I learned of the underpinning ways of this world, the more mysteries appeared.

Zora: W-w-wait a second. So...are you saying you were able to learn that this is a simulation created by Rath, and that the original Cardinal is a program with a main and a subprocess, using conjecture alone?

Cardinal: It is not so surprising. Between two hundred years of time and the Cardinal System's built-in database, anyone would reach the same conclusion.

Zora: Database...? I see. So any non-Underworldian vocabulary you've been using came from there.

Cardinal: I expect that your understanding of many of these terms is not the same as mine...but at the very least, I believe my conjecture is accurate. The Underworld is far too incomplete to be the creation of an all-powerful god, and given the way Administrator's hideous corruption and tyranny are allowed to continue... there was only one possibility: that Rath, the true god, does not seek the happiness of the Underworldians. On the contrary...this world exists so they can observe how its people resist when they are slowly, slowly drawn into a massive trap. You may not realize that in recent years, the border regions of the human realms have been increasingly inflicted with plagues, roving beasts, poor crops, and other causes of premature death. These effects are caused by a final phase that even Administrator is incapable of altering.

Zora: Final Phase?

Cardinal: Aye. Strictly speaking, the stress level rises from day to day...but the final phase of the test the database speaks of wouldn't be anything like a mere plague.

Zora: So...what's going to happen...?

Cardinal: The forces that cradle the egg of the human realm will finally break. I'm sure you know what exists beyond that eggshell.

Zora: The Dark Territory...?

Cardinal: Correct. That world of darkness was created to subject the people to the ultimate agony. The monsters who have Fluctlights like humans, expect for their greater impulse to slaughter and plunder. They can hardly wait to invade the realm of humanity, and commit atrocity upon atrocity. Most likely, that day isn't too far off.

Zora: Does Administrator know that the final phase of this stress test is about to begin?

Cardinal: She underestimates the forces of darkness, convinced that she and her Integrity Knights alone can repulse them. She even had the guardian dragons of north, south, east and west slain, despite their valuable fighting power, because she couldn't exert control over them.

Zora: So what's the score? When the forces of darkness invade, can Administrator and her Integrity Knights actually fight them off?

Cardinal: They cannot. The Integrity Knights are fierce warriors with many years of experience, but there are simply far too few of them. And Administrator's sacred arts are virtually godlike in their ability to disrupt the land, but as I said earlier, using them means putting herself within range of those foes. And while individually, they may fall far short of Administrator, there are as many users of system commands—what you might call dark magic, in this case—as stars in the sky. She might burn a hundred with lightning in one moment, and then be engulfed by a thousand fireballs the next. I do not know if that would actually kill her, but it is clear that she would eventually be forced to retreat to this tower.

Zora: Um...wait a sec. Are you saying that...whether or not you and I beat Administrator, the ultimate fate of this world will be the same? That even if you regain the full powers of the Cardinal System, you won't actually be able to fight off the forces of darkness?

Cardinal: That's correct. At this point, I have no way of stopping the invasion from the Dark Territory.

Zora:...So...as long as you fulfill your purpose of deleting the malfunctioning main process—meaning Administrator—then...whatever happens to the world after that is none of your concern? Is that what you're saying...?

Cardinal pursed her lips, her eyes somewhat mournful as she stared through her little round glasses at Zora.

Cardinal: That may be correct. Indeed...if you look at it from the standpoint of the many souls that could be lost, my goal could be taken as an abandonment of the larger picture...But if you and I sit here and do nothing, then eventually...whether in a year or two or longer, the forces of darkness will invade. They will trample and burn fields and towns, and they will kill many people. It will be a hell that I haven't the words to describe— the ultimate expression of tragedy and cruelty. However...even if I recover all my powers and had the proper command to burn all those monsters into ash at once, I would not use it. They did not ask to be made monsters. As I said, you will not arrive at an answer even after a century of thinking. For you see...if Administrator had never come about here, and humanity had traced the path it was meant to follow, then at this time it would be the forces of man forming an army to invade the Dark Territory and commit unspeakable atrocities to their peoples, instead!

Her soft voice got harder and harder until it cracked like a whip by the end.

Cardinal: In either case, the end of the world will involve great bloodshed. For that outcome was the design of the god Rath. And I...I cannot accept such a god. I will not accept this outcome under any circumstances. So when I learned that the arrival of the stress test was unavoidable, I landed on one simple conclusion. I would eliminate Administrator before that happened, restore my powers as the Cardinal System...and reduce the Human Empire, the Dark Territory—the entire Underworld—to nothingness.

Zora: Reduce it...to nothingness...? What does that mean...?

Cardinal: Just what I said. I'm going to destroy every Fluctlight stored in the Light cube Cluster. Of every last resident of both realms of humanity and darkness. Zora. If, with you help me . I'm able to eliminate the Administrator, and regain all my authority, then before I extinguish this world, I'll grant you a wish, to a degree. If there are people you'd like to save, I won't delete their Fluctlight and leave archived instead. I believe it should be possible after you've escaped to the outside world, for you to secure the Light Cubes of ten or so.

Zora:...

Zora sucked in a sharp breath, surprised by her answer. Was that even possible?

If lightcubes didn't need power to maintain their stored information, and you could safely extract them from the cluster without harming the contents, then the fluctlights themselves shouldn't ever degrade. It would take time, but if the Soul Translator tech became commonplace, Zora could theoretically thaw them out and see them again in the future.

The problem was the step before that. Could he really sneak multiple cubes out of the cluster at the very core of the Rath laboratory? According to Cardinal, they were two inches to a side. Zora couldn't hide several in his pockets at once. Even if he could carry them in a case, ten was about the limit of what he could extract.

So if he accepted her offer, that meant Zora had to choose the souls he wanted to save.

This wasn't like organizing save data on a game console. In a fundamental sense, the artificial fluctlights were just as human as he was. Zora would choose just ten in this entire world to save from certain death—and only because Zora got along with them. Did he have the right? Was he qualified to do such a thing?

Zora: I...I...

But Zora couldn't bring myself to say the word can't. Cardinal stared right through him, seeing all. The only thing Zora could produce was a pathetic complaint.

Zora: Why did you single out me to be your coconspirator in fighting Administrator, anyway? Let me be clear: I have barely any unique advantages at all in this world. There are tons of people with better skill at sacred arts and swordfighting. In fact...even Eugeo. I bet that if we really fought head-to- head, I couldn't beat him anymore.

Once Zora was done with my feeble, passive defense, Cardinal shook her head in exasperation.

Cardinal: It was only twenty years ago that I realized that the stress test, the invasion from the Dark Territory, was inevitable. After that, I redoubled my efforts to find someone to fight on my behalf...

Zora kept my further complaints to himself, sensing that her long, long story was finally reaching its conclusion.

Cardinal: But no matter how skilled in sacred arts and weapons the allies I could find were, there was one other huge obstacle to approaching Administrator that needed to be removed, aside from the Integrity Knights.

Zora: You mean there's more?

Cardinal: Indeed. I considered dozens of possible solutions as my search dragged on, but none was particularly practical...As time passed, and I realized we were in the prelude stages of the Dark Territory invasion, more and more advance parties began threatening the End Mountains—enough that the eight Integrity Knights tasked with protecting the area couldn't eliminate them all. Just when I was starting to consider giving up on forcibly restoring my authority and risking death in an attempt to convince Administrator instead... one of my familiars picked up on an extraordinary, impossible rumor spreading around the northern frontier lands.

Zora: Impossible...?

Cardinal: It was the sort of event that had certainly never happened after Quinella became the Administrator. In order to prevent human settlement from spreading, she had set up massive impediments around the map...and one, a gigantic, resource-sucking tree with nearly limitless priority and durability, got chopped down by two boys.

Zora: Sounds familiar...

Cardinal: I sent my northern Norlangarth agent, Charlotte, to find those boys. She finally tracked them down just before they left the village. I had Charlotte hide in the hair of one of them, the sloppier one, so that I could seek the answer of how they eliminated a near-indestructible object...

Zora: -_- Sloppy huh...

Cardinal: I learned the direct reason promptly. The boy with the light brown hair possessed a sword, a Divine Object with few peers in the entire world. It was a legendary weapon only granted to heroes accepted by the world's dragon guardians, before they were slaughtered...But learning this only brought me fresh questions. Why would these children have such a high object control authority? It was an excitement I had not felt in years. I listened closely to their conversations, day and night. Nearly all of it was idiotic and pointless —

Zora: Geez, sorry.

Cardinal: Shut up and listen. Eventually, in an inn along the way to Centoria, I finally understood the reason why. To my surprise, these two had vanquished a large-scale scouting party from the Dark Territory unaided, according to what they were saying. If true, that meant they each received half the authority advancement points that would normally be distributed among dozens of fighters. That explained how you were able to equip the weapon... but again, it raised more questions. How was it possible that two boys raised in a rural village without even a proper armed garrison managed to defeat the vastly more powerful goblin warriors of the Dark Territory?

Zora: Just to be clear, that was ninety percent bluff...

Cardinal made to scold him, then paused and seemed to accept it.

Cardinal: Ah...yes, I suppose that would have been part of it. It took me quite a while before my doubts about this finally thawed. The black-haired boy— you, Zora—seemed to be taking care with his statements out of concern for his partner, Eugeo. But when I saw you give extra food to a wild animal—a stray dog—I felt a shock like a bolt of lightning. I realized you were totally unbound by the Taboo Index...

Zora: Did I do that...?

Cardinal: Several times. It would have caused great trouble if anyone had seen you. After that moment, I paid keen attention to everything you did and said, through Charlotte's eyes. Especially after you reached Centoria and passed through the gate of the North Centoria Imperial Swordcraft Academy. After a year of observation, I came to my answer at last. I knew you were not a soul born in this world and trapped in a lightcube...but a human being from the outside, the world where the god of creation Rath exists...

Zora: Then I suppose I've let you down. I don't have any of the administrative privileges or means to contact Rath that you'd expect...In fact, I don't even know what's going on in the outside world right now...

Cardinal grinned and raised her index finger.

Cardinal: I knew that from the start. If you had a higher system level than Administrator, you would not have suffered such a wound to defeat those goblins with a sword. Even I cannot surmise the reason you are in the Underworld in this state. Perhaps it is some kind of accident...or a data test with your memory and abilities limited. If the latter, it seems that you have paid a greater price than necessary.

Zora: Yeah, no kidding. I can't believe I'd agree to something like that.

Zora started recalling the pain in his shoulder where the goblin captain sliced him.

Cardinal: But even still, you were the greatest opportunity I could have hoped for. Your existence itself would help me overcome that other great obstacle to fighting Administrator.

Zora: And what is that obstacle?

Cardinal: The Synthesis Ritual requires an extremely lengthy spoken command and a vast amount of parameter adjustment. Including the preparatory stages, the entire process takes three full days.

Once again, this sudden topic change threw Zora for a loop. But Cardinal proceeded onward.

Cardinal: Meaning that when it comes to ordinary combat, a sacred art that accesses the lightcube directly is not really a factor. In other words, there is no danger of having your soul taken over and turned into an Integrity Knight in the midst of battle. However, what if Administrator abandoned the idea of absorbing my chosen warrior and decided simply to destroy the soul altogether...? Without requiring stringent parameter adjustment, the command would become dramatically shorter. She might even finish the spell while her guards were still fighting. We can defend against direct life attacks with equipment and sacred arts. But if she attacks the fluctlight directly, there is no defense. This was a quandary that troubled me for many, many years.

Zora: An attack against the soul...That's pretty chilling...

Cardinal: Just so. Even the most skilled combatant is helpless if their memories are torn to pieces...Which means that you are the only one who can withstand such an attack, Zora. Your Divine Object of the outside world, the device called the STL, transports your soul into the Underworld, and Administrator cannot harm it—there is no such command. Now do you see why I have awaited you so badly? It is the reason I have waited and worked so hard to install as many back doors as possible, to ensure that I could spirit you here into my library, in case you won the Unification Tournament or broke the Taboo Index and found yourself setting foot onto the Axiom Church's territory...

At last, at long last, Cardinal had brought her story up to the present moment. She exhaled, her cheeks a bit reddened.

Zora: I see. So that's what this is about...

Even at this late stage, Zora didn't know why he was here on a dive into the Underworld. If anything, his journey to the center of the world where he might find a way to contact Rath was as much to learn the reason as anything else.

But after hearing the story from this girl who had lived such an extremely long time, it was hard to argue against the idea that Zora was guided here by a kind of fate. The outcome of their battle against Administrator was uncertain, but there was a kind of divine voice telling him to do his utmost to help Cardinal and take ten people at maximum out to the real world with him...

But even before weighty concepts like fate came into the picture, Zora simply couldn't look into the eyes of a girl who had waited for two hundred years for this exact moment and tell her no. Over and over, she insisted she was an emotionless program, but over the course of her very long story, that seemed less and less true. Cardinal was another human being with her own emotions, just like him—even if she was bound by her great duty to correct the state of the world.

Cardinal: What do you say, Zora? I cannot force you...If you decide you cannot agree to my plan to wipe the world clean, I can send you and Eugeo out of a back door of your choosing. If so, and you find some way to defeat Administrator and achieve your goals, you might be fighting me next...but I suppose that is simply fate at work...

And then, Cardinal gave Zora a dazzling, transparent smile, one that suited her visual age better than any expression he'd seen yet. Zora held his silence for a long, long time before replying.

Zora: Cardinal...you said that your soul was a copy of Quinella's, right...?

Cardinal: Aye. That is absolutely correct.

Zora: Then...you must have the blood of pure nobles, too—the genes that command you to pursue your own profit and desires. Why didn't you give all of this up and just flee for your life? You could go to some distant village, a place so far and insignificant that even Administrator couldn't find you, fall in love, get married, have children...and then grow old and die happy. Wasn't that your wish? Your blood should have ordered you to fulfill that desire, for these two hundred years. Why have you been waiting here, alone, resisting your command for all this time...?

Cardinal: You really are a fool.

She grinned.

Cardinal: For me, as the Cardinal subprocess, all profit and all desires amount to just one thing. Eliminating the Administrator and normalizing this world. In my eyes, a normalized world is no longer possible unless it's returned to complete nothingness. Therefore...Therefore, I...No, perhaps I'm wrong. Even I have a desire. Just one...in the last 200 years, there was something I was desperate to know.

She closed her eyes, lifted her face, and stared right at me. She bit her lip in hesitation, folded her hands for several moments, then abruptly leaped to her feet.

Cardinal: Zora, stand up with me.

Zora: Huh...?

Zora got out of my seat. Once he was upright, Cardinal gazed at him, her back considerably arched. Zora wasn't that tall in the grand scheme of things, but there was a big difference between him and the girl, whose appearance was that of a ten-year-old. Cardinal looked around, squinting, then put a foot on her chair and lifted herself up. When she had confirmed that we were at the same eye level, she nodded in satisfaction.

Cardinal: Good. Come here, Zora.

Zora:...?

Zora took a few steps until he was standing in front of Cardinal, still confused.

Cardinal: Closer.

Zora: What?

Cardinal: Just do it!

Zora inched forward, despite his misgivings. When she told him to stop, their bangs were nearly brushing.

Cardinal: Raise your arms.

Zora: Like this?

Cardinal: Now make a circle with them in front.

Zora:.........

Tentatively—and half expecting her to bash him with her staff as soon as he actually did what she told him—Zora circled his arms around Cardinal's back and touched his fingers together, making sure to leave space between them. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Cardinal made a cute display of clicking her tongue.

Cardinal: Really? Do I have to spell it out for you?

Zora:...

Zora felt her arms circle around his own back, and then a mild pressure on the fabric of his shirt. Zora's forehead knocked her large hat off onto the table, and her curly brown hair brushed his cheek. There was a mild weight and warmth on his shoulder and chest.

Zora:.........

Zora stood there and let the silence go for as long as it could. Cardinal broke it first, her barely audible voice the only sound in the vast chamber.

Cardinal: I see...So this... is what it means to be human...

Zora gasped. After two hundred years of thinking about every possibility and strategy, the final thing that Cardinal would want to know could be nothing other than the warmth of another human being. No human being can survive alone; they are social creatures. To be human means to trade words with others, to join hands, to touch another's soul. And yet this girl had been isolated in this room with nothing but silent books for two hundred years.

At last, Zora felt he was beginning to understand the reality of the life Cardinal had lived to this point. Zora's arms closed, pulling on her back to form a closer embrace.

Cardinal: You're warm...

Something about the quality of her whisper was definitively different from her voice before. Zora could sense a small but undeniably warm drop of liquid slowly moving down his cheek.

Cardinal: So warm...At least, I feel rewarded. Those 200 years I spent weren't in vain.

Zora felt another drop run down his cheek and disappear.

Cardinal: Just discovering this warmth is enough to satisfy me. I feel rewarded...more then enough.

After a period of time, Zora felt the sensation of moving air and found that his arms were empty again. Cardinal was off her chair, picking up the toppled hat from the table. She patted it a few times and put it back on her head. When she turned back to Zora, pushing up her glasses, she was the businesslike sage once again.

Cardinal: How long are you planning to stand there in daze?

Zora:...Oh, come on...

Zora protested weakly, wondering if those tears had been a trick of the mind. He rested against the side of the table, folded his arms, and exhaled. Cardinal waited in silence until she brought up the big question, rather simply.

Cardinal: So? Have you made a decision? Are you going to accept my proposal or reject it?

Zora:...

Sadly, Zora did not have the decisiveness to answer right on the spot. In logical terms, picking ten names and pulling them out to the real world with Cardinal's help represented the best-case scenario. Zora could not have countered with a better idea. But just because he couldn't think of one didn't mean it didn't exist. Zora wanted to believe there was a better option. So he looked Cardinal straight in the face and told her his answer.

Zora: All right. I'll take part in your plan. But... But I'm not going to stop thinking about it. Even after we start fighting against the Integrity Knights and Administrator, I'm going to keep searching for a way—for a resolution that avoids the tragedy and allows the world to stay at peace.

Cardinal: Geez, what an absurdly optimistic person you are.

Zora: It's just...I don't want you to disappear. And if ten is all I get to choose, you'll be one of them.

Her eyes widened briefly, then resumed their usual wry expression. Cardinal shook her head dramatically.

Cardinal: And you're also a fool. Who's going to extinguish this world if I escaped?

Zora: Like I said...I understand the concept, I'm just not going to stop struggling to find a better answer along the way.

She looked annoyed, then turned away from Zora. Her voice rode the little ripple of breeze from the whipping of her robe, bearing with it the vast loneliness of two centuries that a moment's embrace couldn't heal.

Cardinal: One day, you too will know the bitterness of giving up. Not of coming up short after giving it your all, but being forced to accept the likelihood that you'll fail. Now let us return. Your partner will be finishing up that history book, I suspect. We ought to include Eugeo in the concrete planning stages.

She rapped her staff on the stone floor and headed down the way they came without a glance back at Zora.

(Timeskip)

As Cardinal predicted, Eugeo was just closing the cover of the heavy tome resting on his knees when they came across him sitting on the stairs. He looked dazed, still lost in that journey over centuries of history. Zora strode up to Eugeo and called out to him.

Zora: We're back. Sorry to have left you alone for so long.

Eugeo: Zora! And also, um...

Zora: Oh, her name is Cardinal. She's, uh...another, former pontifex. She got kicked out by the current pontifex, Administrator.

Eugeo made a strange sort of gulping sound deep in his throat and backed away.

Eugeo: Pontifex?

Zora: She's going to help use fight the Integrity Knights.

Eugeo: H-help...?

Zora: That's right. She's got a mission to stop Administrator and restore her own rule over the world. So we're, uh...working for the same side.

It was extremely brief, and although Zora didn't lie to Eugeo, he wasn't about to explain that Cardinal's first act after she regained control would be to bring about the premature end of the Underworld. He'd have to talk to Eugeo about it eventually, but at this moment in time, he couldn't begin to guess how he'd broach the topic.

Eugeo, who was essentially the personified concept of honesty wearing clothes, stared at Cardinal without a shred of doubt in his eyes and grinned weakly.

Cardinal: Indeed.

Eugeo: Then do you know if Alice the Integrity Knight, Alice Synthesis Thirty, is the same person as Alice Zuberg from Rulid?

Cardinal: I'm sorry, but the information I can access here is extremely limited. I do know an Integrity Knight named Alice was indeed born, but...However, what I can do is tell you how to reverse the Synthesis Ritual for producing Integrity Knights.

Eugeo: How do we do that?

Cardinal: Simply remove the Piety Module embedded in their foreheads. It looks like a triangle prism. The Piety Module is inserted in a way that links to memories. That deals away the past of the person becoming an Integrity Knight, while simultaneously forcing absolute fealty to the Axiom Church and the pontifex.

Zora: In other words, to break the spell we have to jog their memories.

Cardinal: That alone wouldn't be enough. There's one more thing that's absolutely necessary.

Eugeo: W-What's that?

Cardinal: What originally existed where the module's been embedded. In other words, the memory fragment most valued by the Integrity Knight. The Administrator is a cautions women. The memory fragment extracted from those Knights are without a doubt stored in her chambers...on the top floor of the Central Cathedral.

Zora: You mean...to restore their memories, we'll need to take back their stolen memory fragment. But to get our hands on it, we'll have to breach the Knight's defenses. And somehow make it to the top floor where she's located.

Cardinal: Don't be so naive as to think you can beat an Integrity Knight without killing them. The most I can do for you is provide you with equipment equal to that of the Integrity Knights. The rest depends on whether you're able to fight your best.

Eugeo: But what if Alice is the one to show up? I can't bring myself to fight her. I came all this way to get Alice back!

Cardinal: Indeed. You have a point. Eugeo, I understand your goal. Fine. Should Integrity Knight Alice be the one standing in your way, then use this.

Cardinal hands Zora and Eugeo two small daggers.

Zora: What is it?

Cardinal: Whosever is stabbed with this dagger will be linked to me by an inseverable connection. Meaning that any Sacred art I use will affect her without fail. Eugeo, use this to stab Alice on her body. In that instant, I'll send Alice into a deep sleep using my Sacred arts. Until you've regained her memories and prepared to remove the Synthesis.

Eugeo: Understood. If I can't talk sense into Alice, I'll use this.

Cardinal: I originally created it to use against the Administrator, and kept another one as a spare, but well...if you succeed on the first try, it shouldn't matter.

Zora: That's a huge responsibility....but you said something about equal equipment. Did you mean...

Cardinal: You and Eugeo have your own powerful swords, don't you? I'm going to help you get them back.

Eugeo: You mean my Blue Rose Sword and Zora's Black one?

Cardinal: I'm quite certain that your swords are being stored in the armory on the third floor of the cathedral.

Zora: What floor is the Administrator on?

Cardinal: The Central grows by the year, so...it should've reached 100 floors by now.

Zora: -_-

Zora look deadpan. True, the white tower was so tall that from any angle in Centoria, the top was always hidden from view...but he didn't think it would actually have more floors than some real-life skyscrapers. The thought of potentially having a fight on each and every floor made his head hurt.

Cardinal: Unfortunately, there's one last thing you need to do.

Zora: What is it?

Cardinal: You both have powerful swords, but that alone won't be enough to bring down the Integrity Knights. That's because they have the terrifying technique of amplifying their weapon's abilities multiple times.

Eugeo: Do you mean the Perfect Weapon Control Art?

Cardinal: Yes. Weapons of Divine Object class take on the properties of the object they're fashioned from. By fully releasing a weapon's memories so to speak, the Perfect Control Art realizes offense powers more potent then normally possible. Both of you close your eyes and think of your swords.

Both Zora and Eugeo did what Cardinal said and started to think of both their swords and Cardinal spoke up.

Cardinal: Okay, that's enough.

Cardinal then clapped her hands and two pieces of paper appeared.

Cardinal: There. Memorize them throughly.

Once they were in the familiar chamber with countless hallways leading off the three other walls, Cardinal beckoned Zora and Eugeo toward one on the right side. Only after walking down the thirty-foot hallway to the simple door waiting at the end did she finally stop and turn back to them. The smile on her pink lips was as gentle as ever. There was even a hint of a certain satisfaction there.

Cardinal: Eugeo...and Zora. The fate of the world rests on you. Whether it's engulfed in hellfire or sink into nothingness. Or perhaps you'll find a third path. I've told you all that I can. And given you all I can give. All you have to do now is follow the path you believe in.

Eugeo: Thank you very much, Ms Cardinal. I'll definitely get to the top of the cathedral. And restore Alice's memories.

Zora didn't say anything and just bowed his head to Cardinal and looked into her eyes and she did the same and saw the determination in his eyes.

Cardinal: Now...Go!

She turned it and, in the next moment, flung the door wide open.

Zora and Eugeo both looked at each other and nodded to one another and then fist bumped each other and then started to walk through Cardinal's door and once they did, they were now on the 3rd floor of the Central Cathedral.

Zora: Alright. Its now or never.

After a few steps, they were inside the Cathedral. There wasn't a single trace of the door to the Great Library as their journey to the top of the Cathedral has finally began.